• 1-Juliet is the sun...
• 2-Don't Mind If I Do...
• 3-Copy Me
• 4-Made Over
• 5-Knife's Edge
• 6-Paper Cut
• 7-To the Bone
• 8-Double-Edged Sword
• 9-Made of Steel
• 10-Your Serve
• 11-House of Cards
• 12-All Fall Down
• 13-The Politician's Wife
• 14-Epilogue

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, written purely for my enjoyment.

"Ahem," I said in a stern voice and shook my hand in his face.

The Borgia heirloom was firmly cemented on my wedding ring finger, and no amount of pulling would dislodge it.

"No need to be so shirty. I mean anyone with even half an eye would see how beautiful that ring is on your hand. You have exquisite hands. It's the first thing I noticed about you."

"Not my Mudblood buck teeth? That's how I remember it." I pursed my mouth in irritation and shook my hand again.

"Oh no! She's pursing her mouth at me," he said in faux horror. "Hexes can't be far behind," he whispered in my ear.

"Draco!"

"Stop getting your knickers in a twist. I'll warrant they're probably virginal white cotton that on anyone else would stop the most violent sexual desire dead in its tracks, but on you I'm sure they are as sexy as all hell. Oh, the stern eyebrows! Now I'm really in hot water. Just for lunch. Please. I promise. I mean, you're my wife—"

"I'm not your—"

He waved away my objection. "For all intents and purposes, you are." Seeing the look at my face he backpedaled immediately. "Here. At lunch. Only on Fridays. For one hour. As such, I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than contemplate the idea that in the throes of mad love I bought you that plebian, utterly drab set of rings. It's insulting."

"Ron had absolutely no—"

"Please do not bore me with the sad state of his financial affairs. Yes, I'm sure when he bought you those metal circular eyesores he didn't have two Galleons to rub together. He certainly can't say that now, and I have yet to see him addressing that sorry state of affairs you call your wedding rings."

"He doesn't care about things like that," I said primly.

Our twentieth wedding anniversary had come and gone with only a dozen roses to mark its passing. I tried, without success, to ignore the stunning ring that Harry had surprised Ginny with on their twentieth (which happens to be the same day as ours—we had a double wedding—we didn't even get married on our own). Ginny and I marked the event by pooling our money and tacking on three days at the end of that Auror trip so that Ron and Harry could bake themselves on the beach while staying at some ridiculously expensive hotel in San Diego. Wherever that was.

It wasn't that I wanted a new ring because I didn't. Well, I wouldn't have turned it down. But what I would have appreciated was a tangible acknowledgment of our two decades together that didn't end up in the dust bin a week later. Plus, I couldn't help but feel that the roses were nothing more than a "save." That I would have gotten only a peck on the cheek if Ginny or Harry hadn't reminded Ron to do something. Still, I found myself standing up for him.

"Ron isn't the most visual person in the world unless it's the sight of a Quaffle sailing through the air. It's all right."

"No, it's not. It irks me. It's on par with his ignoring your working vacations and letting you sink into a frumpy middle-age without so much as a whimper of protest," he said in a sharp rebuke. "Please, I don't want to talk about him. He only irritates me."

I hated it when Draco insulted Ron, because ninety percent of the time it wasn't that he was right, but he wasn't exactly wrong.

"Now I've hurt your feelings. All right, I was saving this for later, but I can see that I must spend this capital today or you'll sulk the entire lunch. I couldn't bear that after eating lunch by myself for weeks on end. He's doing a magnificent job, much to my surprise."

"Draco!"

"Now you're back to scolding me. Excellent. Of course, I knew he'd be good, but he's surpassed all expectations and has completely silenced the critics who dared to whisper the word 'nepotism.'" He gave me a look. Which I ignored. "Not that I was right or anything. Anyway, the word is that Jenkins left the office in a state of complete disarray. Your husband is sweeping through with his new broom and in addition to putting things right, he's discovered some fiscal, how shall we say, irregularities."

That explained Ron's comments about Jenkins: as in, "If I ever have the good luck to run into that skiving bastard, I'm going to beat him to a bloody pulp."

"But now he works for the Prophet. Aren't you afraid, he'll—"

"Steal from me? Only if he's a complete idiot. Fortunately, the circulation manager does little more than glad-handing and buying pints. Which he's very good at. I've already had a word with him. If wants to keep his dick where it belongs, as opposed to growing out of his right ear, he will account for every Knut that passes through his hands. This little revelation did prompt me to hire him an assistant, whose job is to watch him and keep his files in order. Pansy will have my guts for garters if the Prophet ends up being on the wrong end of some kickback scheme."

Clearly the Jenkins' were short on funds. Given the shabby furniture and the even shabbier clothes Constance Jenkins was wearing the day I snuck over to their house, I'd say there was something drastically wrong. Department heads were well compensated.

"I suggest you use your network of spies to determine whether or not Jenkins has gambling debts. He couldn't possibly be spending all that extra lolly on drink or he'd be dead by now. I can assure you that he's not been lavishing it on his wife. Constance Jenkins looks like she buys her clothes from Oxfam, and I wager she hasn't been to a hairdresser in months. As you've pointed out numerous times, I'm an expert on dowdy. Do you think they'll prosecute?"

That would make Ron's job impossible. As much as his staff seemed to like him now that the initial shock was over, it was one thing to make political and social inroads and quite another to expect one's staff to rat out a boss they'd liked. And by all accounts, Jenkins had taken care of his employees with nice bonuses and lavish raises. So they wouldn't report his skimming off the top, no doubt.

"The Minister says no. Although Bowden—"

"The head of accounting?"

"As of this morning. It's iffy he'll still have his job by quitting time. Stupid bugger. Had he turned any more of a blind eye to Jenkins' shoddy financial procedures, the Minister would have been justified in commissioning a seeing-eye dog for him. If the Minister needs someone to throw to the press, Bowden will be it, as the Minister's decided it's not worth the turmoil to prosecute Jenkins."

"Which was your line of reasoning with the Minister, neatly side-stepping any possible fallout from delving too deeply into pure-bloods and their secret little cabals."

"Perhaps. Anyway, it's nothing more than incompetence and a judicious padding of expense accounts. Which would be bloody hard to prove. I will say that his expenses exceeded mine by a wide margin, and I buy an awful lot of pints on the Ministry's dime."

My eyes widened, because if these lunches were to become public knowledge… When speaking of double-dealing, as always he was three steps ahead of me.

"No worries. These lunches are paid for by Malfoy Galleons, I assure you. Malfoy pounds, actually. Have I told you how lovely, absolutely lovely it is to sit across a table from you again? And you're not slapping my face or kicking me or throwing champagne in my direction. What is this world coming to?"

He was resting his chin on his palm, smiling at me. Happy.

"I did miss you. Dreadfully." Then he belied the low, insistent tone of that "dreadfully" by following it with a silly, "Who else has the ability to keep me in line? Hmmm?"

"A hopeless task," I pointed out. And because this conversation was getting far too dangerous, I changed the subject. "Lily and Roddy are doing absolutely marvelous. We were over there last night visiting, despite this gale. Oh, this weather! I'm tempted to cast a Warming Charm in here. My feet are frozen."

"We're going over there tonight. Yes, it is beastly," he agreed and then all of a sudden my feet were toasty. "There's a new show opening at the Tate next week. Let's brown bag it and visit it over our lunch hour. Say, Thursday?"

Before I knew it, we were having lunch at Chevaliers every Friday. Ostensibly it was to discuss Ministry business away from the Ministry, but whatever business that needed to be discussed was dealt with by the time we'd ordered our meals. Then Monday's lunch became antique shopping day. Not the antique shopping I'd done with my mother. We went to shops where you made an appointment and had to ring a doorbell to gain access to the showroom. When I protested that I really couldn't afford even a teacup from these places, Draco snorted. "You're usually not this thick. It's for the flat. I told you I was going to change it. I sincerely doubt this desk is early nineteenth century. The legs aren't right. It's awfully beautiful though. What do you think? I like that china set over there. Service for twenty seems extreme. I wonder if they'd break it up. Too frou-frou for every day?" Tuesday's lunch was devoted to museums where we'd pick up a quick sandwich in the cafeteria and inhale the art as we walked and munched. Thursday's lunch was spent perusing bookstores—Foyles usually—and then we were back to Friday's at Chevaliers. Before I knew it, I was having lunch with Draco four times a week. The only day I was free was Wednesday. The day he had lunch with the Minister.

I commented once on how at home he was in the Muggle world. "Which is surprising, if you don't mind my saying so." I'd picked up a history of the Borgias and was browsing through it.

He took it away from me and put it back on the shelf. "Incomplete at best. Aunt Delizia is due for a visit. We'll have tea. You'll learn far more from her about my family in one hour than any half-assed history written by Muggles." He shuddered as if warding off a chill. "Not that it's their fault. Muggle historians can't help but have it all wrong. Yes, well, after the war the wizarding world wasn't very welcoming to put it mildly. You'll appreciate the irony. I found myself escaping to Muggle London just to interact with people whose first reaction on seeing me was usually a smile, not a sneer. Oh, look, a new book by Ian McEwan. I love his writing. Don't you?"

This was a gradual process, an invitation here, a suggestion there. So gradual in fact, that it wasn't until late spring that I realized that I was spending more time with Draco Malfoy than I was with my husband. Ron was travelling constantly; even weekends were eaten up. He assured me that this insane pace would probably only go on for a year or so. Given the amount of overtime I'd put in over the course of my career, any complaints on my part would have been most unfair. Even so, I had to bite my tongue as our Saturday tea became a thing of the past, and even the heretofore sacrosanct Sunday dinner with Arthur and Molly was now once a month at best. I was no sooner emptying his suitcase full of dirty shorts than I was filling it up with clean ones.

Yet I wasn't lonely at all. My days were filled with work and lunches with Draco, and my nights with even more work or I perused Muggle newspapers for interesting art exhibits or book reviews. When I started to yawn I'd get into bed and snuggle up with a book that I'd picked up at Foyle's. With Draco.

No, I wasn't lonely in the least, although I should have been. Looking back, it was all so intimate: the lunches, the discussions about art and books, the arguments over classical music versus jazz, the mutual love of gardens, which prompted an afternoon off to attend the Chelsea Flower Show. Together. Yes, it was all so dangerously intimate.

And then there was my wardrobe.

The man was devious down to his last molecule. I have to admit it took me a couple of weeks, but I began to notice that my clothes were slowly but surely being replaced. A grey wool pencil skirt that I'd debated consigning to the Oxfam box because the backside was getting threadbare all of a sudden wasn't threadbare. In fact, it was not even the same skirt. For one thing, that skirt had been lined with cheap sateen. This skirt was nearly the same cut but lined with black silk. And it looked slightly different. Severe yet chic. As opposed to severe and dowdy. It's a fine line, but the difference was undeniable.

Then my serviceable black twin set was replaced by one made of the finest merino wool. At this rate, by August he would have replaced my entire wardrobe.

One Friday at lunch I said casually, "The last time I looked in the mirror I was not Eliza Doolittle and you are not Henry Higgins."

He actually blushed.

And was speechless!

"I know clothes are important to you, and no doubt I embarrass the hell out of you when we're out together. But please. No more. All right?"

He nodded.

"Did I go too far?" he mumbled, which was most unusual for him.

"Yes," I admitted, "I assume you had your house-elf make the switch?"

"Possibly, but really. Hermione. Look at you. You're so…"

"Three more sentences and you will dig yourself into a hole from which not even magic will save you," I warned.

He shrugged and began to pout.

"Stop that this instant."

"I just…"

I raised an eyebrow.

He held up his hands in surrender.

"By the way, your wards are downright pitiful. Not that Sneepy couldn't have Apparated through them. Malfoy house-elves are extremely powerful and do not give me that look of consternation. I'll have you know that I freed all my house-elves at the end of the war. They have clothes and everything. That's better. I love your smile. You have a very sweet smile and it's rarely directed at me. I shall savor this moment forever.

"Unfortunately, no matter how many smiles you wing my way, it does not excuse the fact that you need a refresher course on wards. Seriously, I could have broken that pitiful mess of spells that you call wards when I was six. Without a wand."

"Surely not."

"Surely, yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes. I was a most precocious child."

"Precocious I'm sure doesn't quite cover it."

"I'm a precocious adult."

"Draco," I warned.

There it was again; that booming laugh. When he'd finally stopped chortling, he wiped his eyes with his napkin and said, "I absolutely adore you. Now, what would you like for dessert? Shall we split a cream bruleé?"

One day in late May we were walking back to the Ministry after our usual Thursday book-buying expedition when Draco said out of the blue, "Do you get any exercise?" and I replied in a voice that was a trifle frosty because this had been a sore point between me and Ron for years, "No, I keep meaning to do something," and he replied, "How about tennis? Do you play?" and I replied, "Yes, I used to be quite good," and he replied, "Excellent. I'll meet you at Activité at 7:00 a.m. on Monday and Wednesday mornings."

My first reaction was to say yes and then I realized. "Isn't that a little early for you?"

"Because I saunter into the Ministry around ten? I'm one of those disgusting people who need four hours of sleep a night. Max. I'm up at five every morning. By the time you're lumbering out of bed, Miss Lazy Bones, I've already showered, shaved, spoken to my broker, and made my trades for the day. Then I get in a good hour of exercise. Every day. When was the last time you moved that delectable arse of yours?"

"I beg your pardon."

"My point. At the risk of repeating myself, I'll meet you at Activité at seven."

Tennis. I hadn't played tennis in years. I used to love tennis. I found myself saying, "Yes, all right," before common sense insisted I say no.

The next day after lunch I said far too casually, "Ron, would you like to play a spot of tennis with me?" Which I was honest enough to admit was brought on by guilt because Ron and I seemed to have become nothing more than occasional roommates at this point.

At home for the weekend—the first time in weeks—he looked up from the Quidditch magazine he was thumbing through.

"Tennis?" he said with as much enthusiasm as if I had asked if he was in the mood for a round of Bat-bogey hexes. "You know I don't play tennis."

"Yes, well, I thought you might have changed your mind. We could play tomorrow. At the court in Tunbridge Wells. Before we go to Sunday dinner."

He paused and I could tell he was holding back. That he was having a hard time not tearing strips off of me. "Hermione, I'm coming off a ninety-hour week. I'm so bloody exhausted that I'm going to take a three-hour nap this afternoon and still go bed before it's dark. Tomorrow? Wake me up before noon and you're a dead woman. When I get up, I'm going to lounge around in my shorts for a couple of hours, only getting dressed in time to be presentable to my mum. I'm not even shaving if I can bloody well get away with it."

That was that.

While Ron took his nap, I Apparated into Tunbridge Wells, bought myself a new pair of trainers, and then Apparated to my parents' house to unearth my old racket from a cobweb-infested corner of the garage. I couldn't convince my father to bat balls with me at the local courts, so I pounded balls against a backboard for two hours.

I hadn't played since the summer before our sixth year, before all hell broke loose and improving my backhand became pointless when stacked up against surviving beyond my seventeenth birthday. But I had been a decent player at one time, and I was competitive enough that I didn't want to get too badly trounced.

Activité was a recent addition to Diagon Alley. Tucked in the very back, obviously magicked to an astonishing degree, it was the wizard equivalent of the modern Muggle sports club. There were the tennis and squash courts, but also classes on moga (magic and yoga), weight rooms (where buff young wizards worked out on weight machines that looked like medieval torture racks), and rooms magicked for the runners to display any desired setting. Sloths could meander on paths through the New Forest, while the physically buff could run up and down the crags of the Scotland. Hip beyond belief with an active pick-up scene, there was a waiting list for membership months long. Personally, I couldn't imagine trying to flirt with someone while sweating like a pig, but then that kind of sexual dance had never been my style.

I'd never been in it, but Harry and Ron had joined the day it opened. Every month I noted the debit from our Gringotts account with a little shudder. Not that Ron and I didn't have the money (and, of course, for Harry it wasn't an issue), but I considered it a gross extravagance, especially since I doubted Ron and Harry actually exercised. I'd sat through many a meal listening to how brill it was, from the always warm towels to the magnificent pub in the basement. I did point out once that they didn't seem interested in the exercise part at all, but in paying twice the going rate for pints so that they could ogle young women in revealing gym clothes. They rolled their eyes and gave each other that look that said, "She just doesn't get it."

Despite being skeptical at exactly how 'brill' it could possibly be, it was with some trepidation that I pushed open the doors. Draco was waiting for me in the lobby, his slender frame clothed in the most elegant of tennis whites. I hadn't thought about it when I left the house, but immediately I knew that the ratty old tee-shirt of Ron's and my gardening shorts were, obviously, completely inappropriate. While this attire might have been fine for the tennis courts around the corner from my parents' house, here I'd be amazed if they didn't show me the door.

Ignoring my spanking new trainers, Draco handed me a bag, saying, "How remiss of me to schedule a game on such short notice. I took the liberty of buying you some tennis whites." So quickly that I didn't even have time to respond, he said in a rush, "I'll meet you on court number one," and then he was off.

There was a part of me that was miffed, because how dare he assume I'd be a scruffy mess that had just tumbled out of bed, and there was a part of me that was grateful because I looked like a scruffy mess that had just tumbled out of bed.

Well, I had my wand; I could adjust this outfit if it didn't fit.

Silly me. It was perfect. With this fitted top and a short skirt, I could have played center court at Wimbledon without raising any eyebrows. Thank Merlin I'd shaved my legs the night before.

Draco was sipping from a water bottle when I entered the room. He stopped mid-gulp. Just stopped.

"What?" I shouted.

He put the water bottle down and trotted over to me.

"You're a vision. Not that I'm surprised." He reached up to tuck a hair behind my ear. "Now, I don't intend to be easy on you—"

"As if."

"You did say you were quite good at one time."

Southern England's Champion for players under fifteen two years running, but I refrained from boasting.

"Yes, I was passable."

He narrowed his eyes. "Hmmm, knowing you, you probably had your opponents in tears of defeat. The only thing you do badly is dress. Do you…" He paused and his eyes widened a fraction. "Is that your racket?"

I lifted up my old wooden Wilson, a little scuffed around the edges, but still sound.

"Yes. Why?"

"What to buy you for your birthday is no longer in question. Now, shall we?" He made a gallant sweep of his hand to indicate play. Fishing in his pockets for a couple of balls, he bounced them to me. I caught them without a fumble; a good sign.

We began warming up, just batting the balls back and forth.

"This is quite lovely," I shouting, referring to the room magicked to look like a tennis court on some English estate. The gardens around the court were stunning; all white roses and azaleas. It looked familiar.

"Yes, I spoke to the owners of this place and they allowed me to spell it so that it replicates the grounds of the Sissinghurst. It's perpetually spring. "

I stopped mid-swing. The owners. Why did that have a familiar ring?

"You or Pansy?" I didn't bother to elaborate.

"Are you going to hit that ball?" he demanded.

"You or Pansy?"

"Merlin, you're irritating. Mother, actually. She needed an investment."

I reached up and served, hitting the ball with a resounding thwack. My racket might be old-fashioned, but you'd have never known it from the way that ball sailed over the net. It hit the grass like fury and bounced away from him. I'd put quite a spin on it.

"Fifteen love."

"Bitch," he mouthed.

"Is there any part of the wizarding world that isn't owned by you and/or your relatives?"

"It's something of a work in progress. Service, if you please. This one I won't miss."

To Be Continued